My eyes roll at the gravelly voice scratching its way over the chain-link fence separating our yards. Mr. Woods has been standing there, every day for the past month, chiding my family about our preparations. Sometimes he’d just hum some old gospel hymn and wait for me to look up before saying something he thought was funny.

This time, I don’t even lift my head. Not even as seven fighter jets, a daily sight nowadays, scream overhead. Can’t waste my energy on anger when I have bottled water, batteries, toilet paper, and canned goods to haul into my cellar.

“You hear what I said, young fella?”

After forty years at US Steel’s Gary Works, you’d think he’d have something better to do in retirement than badger me all summer. I walk over to the outside…

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About Michelle McGill-Vargas

Michelle hails from Gary, Indiana where she enjoys writing historical fiction, flash fiction, and short stories. Her writings have appeared in "Lutheran Witness", "Splickety Magazine", "The Copperfield Review", and "Typehouse Literary Magazine." She served as vice-president of the Indiana Writers' Consortium. Until the day her historical fiction manuscripts get published, she pays the bills as a special education administrator with a background in deaf education. In October 2018, she will be a contributor to Concordia Publishing House's quarterly devotional series "Portals of Prayer." Visit her blog at www.michellemcgillvargas.wordpress.com